1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices for promoting dental hygiene, and more particularly to a tongue scraper for cleansing food debris, volatile sulfur compounds, dead cells, microflora and other microorganisms from the tongue.
2. Description of the Related Art
The human tongue is slightly furry in texture and has numerous protuberances (viz., papillae) which convey to the brain the senses of taste and touch. Consequently, the tongue easily can become a breeding ground for microflora such as bacteria, as well as a repository for food debris, volatile sulfur compounds which are a major cause of halitosis, and dead cells. Over time, some of the collected material becomes a soft plaque which is another cause of bad breath, and also attacks the teeth and gums. Tests have shown that daily scraping to reduce the amount of coating on the tongue eliminates much of the bacteria and sulfur compounds, significantly inhibiting plaque formation on the teeth in the long term, and substantially reducing halitosis in the short term.
A wide variety of tongue scrapers are known in the dental hygiene arts. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,477,435 to Artelli discloses a tongue scraper with a metal blade-like member having one end portion formed to fit between wooden handle parts. A rigid blade-like portion extends forwardly of the handle at the other end in a curve for a right-handed or left-handed person. U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,964 to Castanedo discloses a one-piece tongue scraper which includes an elongated handle at one end with longitudinally diverging arms at the other end. The ends of the arms are connected by a longitudinally bowed cross bar having a laterally centered arched portion and beveled edge faces. U.S. Pat. No. 4,455,704 to Williams discloses a tongue cleaner in combination with a toothbrush. The tongue cleaner is an arcuate scraper member which is centrally secured to the tooth brush handle at the end opposite the brush.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,217,475 ("'475") to Kuber discloses a tongue scraper intended to be disposable after being used only once. The normally planar scraper is formed of a flexible, resilient material and includes opposed outer portions having smooth generally parallel edges. Each outer portion terminates in a rounded free end portion. An elongated central portion having a concave serrated edge is disposed between the two outer portions. Holding one end portion firmly in each hand and bending the scraper into a U-shape, the user contacts the extended tongue with the serrated edge and then scrapes gently from back to front to remove accumulated coating material.
The concave edge of the '475 scraper cannot optimally engage the tongue's lateral concavity. The mismatch between the two concavely arcuate conformations creates coverage gaps resulting in inefficient cleansing. What is needed is a scraper which includes an edge having a convexly shaped contour which conforms to the tongue's concave contour, and a linear edge to efficiently scrape the tongue's planar surface portions.